I WAS NOT CONSULTED ON THIS METEOR SHOWER

Let me say this once, calmly, so there is a written record: on August 12th, apparently, the sky is going to do something. A "rare celestial event." The "greatest single day and night for skywatching in years." According to Live Science — a publication I have never once been contacted by, despite being available — this is being sold to the public as some kind of gift. A treat. A freebie from the cosmos.

Nobody asked me.

I want that in the minutes. I want that stapled to whatever internal memo got passed around the meteorological-astronomical-industrial complex when they decided, apparently unilaterally, that August 12th was going to be THE night. Not August 11th. Not the 13th, when I might have had a clearer calendar. The 12th. Scheduled. Announced. Calendared. As though I am simply expected to rearrange my entire evening around a decision I had zero input into, made by an institution I cannot even name, because NO ONE WILL TELL ME WHO IS ACTUALLY IN CHARGE OF THE SKY.

This is not about a meteor shower. It's about me, and I did not agree to this.

Do you understand what it means to schedule a "rare event" and not loop in the people it is happening ABOVE? I live under this sky. I pay taxes, I pay for streetlights that I now understand are going to be a whole THING on the night in question because apparently light pollution "interferes with visibility," which — hold on. Hold ON. So now I'm being told that in order to properly enjoy an event I was never invited to plan, I additionally have to go DARK? I have to inconvenience myself further, drive somewhere, "find a place with minimal light pollution," on top of already having had zero say in the date? Who approved this two-tier participation system where the people who show up to some field in the middle of nowhere get the good view and the rest of us get some diminished, watered-down, filtered-through-a-streetlamp version of an event that was already sprung on us without so much as an email blast?

I want to speak to the manager. Not the weatherman. Not some astronomer with a nice voice and a telescope, calmly telling me to "look toward the northeast after midnight" like that's an acceptable substitute for basic professional courtesy. I mean whoever is ACTUALLY RUNNING THIS. Because someone scheduled this. Someone, somewhere, looked at an orbital calendar, cross-referenced it against Earth's rotation, and said "yes, let's do the big one on the 12th," and at NO POINT did that person's process include a public comment period. Where was my public comment period? I have THOUGHTS about the 12th. I have a thing on the 12th, potentially, that I haven't even scheduled yet, and I can't schedule it now, because apparently I'm expected to keep the evening open for a celestial body I don't personally have a relationship with.

And don't even get me started on "clear skies permitting." Excuse me? PERMITTING? So after not consulting me on the date, after making me relocate my entire body to some field to avoid streetlight interference that I also didn't consent to, THERE'S A CLAUSE? An out? A little asterisk where if it's cloudy, the whole thing is just... cancelled, no refund, no rain check, no formal apology issued to the people who moved their evenings around for this? Where is the SLA here? Where is the accountability? I have been on hold with actual customer service departments that treated me with more procedural respect than the entire field of observational astronomy is currently extending to the general public.

Somebody is going to explain to me, in writing, why "years" was the word chosen. "The greatest night for skywatching in YEARS." Years! As in, this has been coming. As in, someone has known about this for YEARS and decided to inform me now, weeks out, like I'm going to just drop everything. I have been going about my life under the assumption that the sky was, broadly, handled — that whatever agency or observatory or consortium is responsible for tracking this stuff was doing so in MY interest, keeping ME in the loop, and instead I find out from an ARTICLE that there's been a whole SCHEDULE this whole time that I was never once looped into. What ELSE is on that calendar that I don't know about? What other "rare events" have already happened, already come and gone, WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT, because nobody thought to send so much as a calendar invite?

I am documenting this. I want that understood. Every part of this — the lack of advance personal notification, the light-pollution double standard, the unacceptable "permitting" weather clause, the sheer audacity of calling this a "rare opportunity" as though I should be GRATEFUL — is being documented, and I will be escalating it, and I don't yet know to whom, because AGAIN, nobody will tell me who's in charge, but when I find out, THEY. WILL. HEAR. FROM ME.

And can we talk about the framing? "A rare celestial event for skywatchers this year." Skywatchers. As if this is some hobbyist niche, some little club I'm not automatically already a member of by virtue of HAVING EYES AND STANDING ON THE PLANET. I did not sign up to be a "skywatcher." I was enrolled in this. Involuntarily. The moment I was born under this sky, I became a stakeholder, and stakeholders get NOTIFIED, they get BRIEFED, they do not get a blog post two weeks out telling them to "mark their calendars" like this is a casual save-the-date for somebody's backyard barbecue. This is the SKY. This is supposed to be RELIABLE. This is supposed to be the ONE thing that just sits there and behaves, and instead I find out it's out here throwing "rare significant events" whenever it feels like it, on ITS timeline, with NO REGARD for mine.

I want a formal apology. Not from Live Science — they're just the messenger, and frankly they could've called me for comment and didn't, which is its own issue I'm setting aside for now — but from whatever body sets the astronomical calendar. I want them to explain, on the record, why the public — why I, specifically, a taxpaying resident of this exact same solar system — was not consulted on the date, the duration, the visibility conditions, or the contingency plan should it, God forbid, be cloudy. I want a rain-check policy. I want light-pollution accommodations extended to people who did not relocate to a field. And I want it in writing that this will never happen again without proper advance notice, because I am ONE incident away from filing a complaint with an agency that I will have to first identify, because apparently NOBODY WANTS TO OWN THIS.

Mark your calendars, they said. I marked it. In red. With a complaint number I haven't been assigned yet, because nobody has called me back.

This is not over. Someone will be hearing from me.

— Alice, still waiting for the sky's customer service department to pick up